George  Washington  Flowers 
Memorial  Collection 

DUKE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

ESTABLISHED  BY  THE 
FAMILY  OF 
COLONEL  FLOWERS 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2014 


https://archive.org/details/nationalsinsfastOOthor 


THE  FLOWERS  COLIECTIOM 

Itational  §m. 


FAST-DAT  SERMON: 


PREACHED  IN  THE 


PRESBYTERIAN  CHURCH,  COLUMBIi,  S.  C, 

WEDNESDAY,  NOVEMBER  21,  1860, 


By  Rev.  J.  H.  THORNWELL,  D.  D 


COLUMBIA,  S.  C: 

SOUTHERN  GUARDIAN  STEAM-POWER  PRESS. 


1860. 


S  E  R  M  O  N 


And  it  came  to  pass,  when  King  Hezekiah  heard  it,  that  he  rent  his 
clothes,  and  covered  himself  with  sackcloth,  and  went  into  the  house  of  the 
Lord." — Isaiah  37  :  1. 

I  have  no  design,  in  the  selection  of  these  words,  to  inti- 
mate that  there  is  a  parallel  between  Jerusalem  and  our  own 
Commonwealth  in  relation  to  the  Covenant  of  God.  I  am 
far  from  believing  that  we  alone,  of  all  the  people  of  the 
earth,  are  possessed  of  the  true  religion,  and  far  from  en- 
couraging the  narrow  and  exclusive  spirit  which,  with  the 
ancient  hypocrites  denounced  by  the  Prophet,  can  com- 
placently exclaim,  the  temple  of  the  Lord,  the  temple  of 
the  Lord,  are  we.  Such  arrogance  and  bigotry  are  utterly 
inconsistent  with  the  penitential  confessions  which  this  day 
has  been  set  apart  to  evoke.  We  are  here,  not  like  the 
Pharisee,  to  boast  of  our  own  righteousness,  and  to  thank 
God  that  we  are  not  like  other  men ;  but  we  are  here  like 
the  poor  publican,  to  smite  upon  our  breasts,  and  to  say,  God 
be  merciful  to  us,  sinners.  My  design,  in  the  choice  of 
these  words,  is  to  illustrate  the  spirit  and  temper  with 
which  a  Christian  people  should  deport  themselves  in  times 
of  public  calamity  and  distress.  Jerusalem  was  in  great 
straits.  The  whole  country  had  been  ravaged  by  a  proud 
and  insolent  foe.  The  Sacred  City  remained  as  the  last 
hold  of  the  State,  and  a  large  army  lay  encamped  before 
its  walls.  Ruin  seemed  to  be  inevitable.  It  teas  a  day  of 
trouble,  and  of  rebuke^  and  of  blasphemij.  The  children  had 
come  to  the  birth,  and  there  was  not  strength  to  bring  forth.  In 


4 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


the  extremity  of  the  danger,  the  sovereign  betakes  himself 
to  God.  Kenouncing  all  human  confidence,  and  all  human 
alliances,  he  rent  his  clothes,  and  covered  himself  with 
sackcloth,  and  went  into  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

In  applying  the  text  to  our  own  circumstances,  widely 
different  in  many  respects  from  those  of  Jerusalem  at  the 
time  referred  to,  I  am  oppressed  with  a  difficulty,  which 
you  that  are  acquainted  w^ith  my  views  of  the  nature  and 
functions  of  the  Christian  ministry  can  readily  under- 
stand. During  the  twenty-five  years  in  which  I  have 
fulfilled  my  course  as  a  preacher — all  of  which  have  been 
spent  in  my  native  State,  and  nearly  all  in  this  city — 
I  have  never  introduced  secular  politics  into  the  instruc- 
tions of  the  pulpit.  It  has  been  a  point  of  conscience  with 
me  to  know  no  party  in  the  State.  Questions  of  law  and 
public  administration  I  have  left  to  the  tribunals  appointed 
to  settle  them,  and  have  confined  my  exhortations  to  those 
greatmattersthat  pertain  immediately  to  thekingdom  of  God 
I  have  left  it  to  Ci^sar  to  take  care  of  his  own  rights,  and 
have  insisted  only  upon  the  supreme  rights  of  the  Almighty. 
The  angry  disputes  of  the  forum  I  have  excluded  from  the 
house  of  the  Lord.  And  while  all  classes  have  been  ex- 
horted to  the  discharge  of  their  common  duties,  as  men, 
as  citizens,  as  members  of  the  family — while  the  sanctions 
of  religion  have,  without  scruple,  been  applied  to  all  the  re- 
lations of  life,  whether  public  or  private,  civil  or  domestic — 
the  grounds  of  dissension  which  divide  the  community  into 
parties,  and  range  its  members  under  difierent  banners,  have 
not  been  permitted  to  intrude  into  the  sanctuary.  The 
business  of  a  preacher,  as  such,  is  to  expound  the  Word  of 
God.  He  has  no  commission  to  go  beyond  the  teaching  of 
the  Scriptures.  He  has  no  authority  to  expound  to  sena- 
tors the  Constitution  of  the  State,  nor  to  interpret  for 
judges  the  law  of  the  land.  In  the  civil  and  political  sphere, 
the  dead  must  bury  their  dead.  It  is  obvious,  however, 
that  religious  sanctions  cannot  be  applied  to  civil  and 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


5 


political  duties  without  taking  for  granted  the  relations  out 
of  wliieh  these  duties  spring.  Religion  cannot  exact  sub- 
mission to  the  powers  that  be,  without  implying  that  these 
powers  are  known  and  confessed.  It  cannot  enjoin  obe- 
dience to  C^^sar,  without  taking  it  for  granted  that  the 
authority  of  Caesar  is  acknowledged.  When  the  Constitu- 
tion of  the  State  is  fixed  and  settled,  the  general  reference 
to  it  which  religion  implies,  in  the  inculcation  of  civil  and 
political  duties,  may  be  made  without  intruding  into  the 
functions  of  the  magistrate,  or  taking  sides  with  any  par- 
ticular pRrty  in  the  Commonwealth.  The  relations  which 
condition  duty  are  admitted,  and  the  conscience  instantly 
recognizes  the  grounds  on  which  the  minister  of  the  Gospel 
exhorts  to  fidelity.  The  duties  belong  to  the  department 
of  religion  ;  the  relations  out  of  which  they  spring  belong- 
to  the  department  of  political  science  ;  and  must  be  deter- 
mined apart  from  the  Word  of  God.  The  concrete  cases, 
to  which  the  law  of  God  is  to  be  applied,  must  always  be 
given ;  the  law  itself  is  all  that  the  preacher  can  enforce  as 
of  Divine  authority.  As  the  law,  without  the  facts,  how- 
ever, is  a  shadow  without  substance ;  as  the  duty  is  un- 
meaning which  is  determined  b}^  no  definite  relations ;  the 
preacher  cannot  inculcate  civil  obedience,  or  convict  of 
national  sin,  without  allusions,  more  or  less  precise,  to  the 
theory  and  structure  of  the  government.  He  avoids  pre- 
sumption, b}^  having  it  distinctly  understood,  that  the  theory 
which  he  assumes  is  not  announced  as  the  Word  of  God, 
but  is  to  be  proved,  as  any  other  facts  of  history  and  expe- 
rience. He  speaks  here  only  in  his  own  name,  as  a  man, 
and  proniulges  a  matter  of  opinion,  and  not  an  article  of 
faith.  If  the  assumptions  which  he  makes  are  true,  the 
duties  which  he  enjoins  must  be  accepted  as  Divine  com- 
mands. The  specuhitive  antecedents  being  admitted,  the 
practical  consequents  cannot  be  avoided.  There  are  cases 
in  which  the  question  relates  to  a  change  in  the  govern- 
ment, in  which  the  question  of  duty  is  simply  a  question  of 


6 


FAST-DAY  SEEMON. 


revolution.  In  such  cases  the  minister  has  no  commission 
from  God  to  recommend  or  resist  a  change,  unless  some 
moral  principle  is  immediately  involved.  He  can  explain 
and  enforce  the  spirit  and  temper  in  which  revolution 
should  be  contemplated  and  carried  forward  or  abandoned. 
He  can  expound  the  doctrine  of  the  Scriptures  in  relation 
to  the  nature,  the  grounds,  the  extent  and  limitations  of 
civil  obedience  ;  but  it  is  not  for  him,  as  a  preacher,  to  say 
wdien  evils  are  intolerable,  nor  to  prescribe  the  mode  and 
measure  of  redress.  These  points  he  must  leave  to  the 
State  itself.  When  a  revolution  has  once  been  achieved, 
he  can  enforce  the  duties  which  spring  from  the  new  con- 
dition of  aifairs. 

Thus  much  I  have  felt  bound  to  say,  as  to  my  views  of 
the  duty  of  a  minister  in  relation  to  matters  of  State.  As 
a  citizen,  a  man,  a  member  of  the  Commonwealth,  he  has 
a  right  to  form  and  express  his  opinions  upon  every  subject, 
to  whatever  department  it  belongs,  which  affects  the 
interests  of  his  race.  As  a  man,  he  is  as  free  as  any  other 
man  ;  but  the  citizen  must  not  be  confounded  with  the 
preacher,  nor  private  opinions  with  the  oracles  of  God. 
Entertaining  these  sentiments  concerning  the  relations  of 
the  sacred  office  to  political  affairs,  I  am  oppressed  with 
the  apprehension,  that  in  attempting  to  fulfil  the  requi- 
sitions of  the  present  occasion,  I  may  transgress  the  limits 
of  propriety,  and  merge  the  pulpit  into  the  rostrum.  I  am 
anxious  to  avoid  this  error,  and  would,  therefore,  have  it 
"understood,  in  advance,  that  whatever  theory  may  be 
assumed  of  the  nature  and  structure  of  our  Government,  is 
assumed  upon  the  common  grounds  of  historical  knowledge, 
and  is  assumed  mainly  as  fixing  the  points  from  which  I 
would  survey  the  sins  of  the  country.  If  true — and  no  man 
has  a  right  to  reject  them,  without  being  able  to  disprove 
them — my  conclusions  in  reference  to  our  national  guilt  are 
irrefragably  established.  If  not  true,  we  must  either  deny 
that  we  are  sinners,  or  must  seek  some  other  relations  in 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


7 


which  to  ground  the  consciousness  of  sin.  If  that  conscious- 
ness should  be  thoroughly  grounded,  the  services  of  this 
day  will  not  be  in  vain.  I  can  trul}^  say  that  niy  great  aim 
is  not  to  expound  our  complex  institutions,  but  to  awaken 
the  national  conscience  to  a  sense  of  its  responsibility  be- 
fore God.  It  is  not  to  enlighten  your  minds,  but  to  touch 
your  hearts  ;  not  to  plead  the  cause  of  States  rights  or 
Federal  authority,  but  to  bring  you  as  penitents  before 
the  Supreme  Judge.  This  is  no  common  solemnity.  The 
day  has  been  set  apart  by  the  constituted  authorities  of  this 
Commonwealth,  by  joint  resolution  of  both  branches  of  the 
Legislature,  and  proclaimed  by  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  the 
State,  as  a  day  of  fasting,  humiliation  and  prayer.  South 
Carolina,  therefore,  as  an  organized  political  community, 
prostrates  herself  this  day  before  God.  It  is  a  time  of 
danger,  of  blasphemy  and  rebuke,  and,  imitating  the  exam- 
ple of  Hezekiah,  she  rends  her  clothes,  covers  herself  with 
sackcloth,  and  comes  into  the  House  of  the  Lord.  The 
question  is,  how  she  should  demean  herself  under  these 
solemn  circumstances.  Every  minister,  this  day,  becomes 
her  organ,  and  he  should  instruct  the  people  as  to  the 
attitude  which  we  should  all  assume  in  the  presence  of 
Jehovah.  It  is  a  day  of  solemn  worship,  in  which  the 
State  appears  as  a  penitent,  and  lays  her  case  before  the 
Judge  of  all  the  earth. 

The  points  to  which  I  shall  direct  your  attention,  are, 
first,  the  spirit  in  which  we  should  approach  God,  and 
second,  the  errand  on  which  we  should  go. 

I.  As  the  individual,  in  coming  to  God,  must  believe  that 
He  is,  and  that  He  is  the  rewarder  of  them  that  dili- 
gently seek  Him,  so  the  State  must  be  impressed  with  a 
profound  sense  of  His  all-pervading  providence,  and  of  its 
responsibility  to  Him,  as  the  moral  Ruler  of  the  world. 
The  powers  that  be  are  ordained  of  Him.  From  Him  the 
magistrate  receives  his  commission,  and  in  His  fear,  he  must 
use  the  sword  as  a  terror  to  evil  doers  and  a  praise  to  them 


8 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


that  do  well.  Civil  government  is  an  institute  of  Heaven, 
founded  in  the  character  of  man  as  social  and  moral,  and  is 
designed  to  realize  the  idea  of  justice.  Take  away  the 
notion  of  mutual  rights  and  the  corresponding  notions  of 
duty  and  ohligation,  and  a  commonwealth  is  no  more  con- 
ceivable among  men  than  among  brutes.  As  the  State  is 
essentially  moral  in  its  idea,  it  connects  itself  directly  with 
the  government  of  God.  It  is,  indeed,  the  organ  through 
which  that  government  is  administered  in  its  relations  to 
the  highest  interests  of  earth.  A  State,  therefore,  which 
does  not  recognize  its  dependence  upon  God,  or  which  fails 
to  apprehend,  in  its  functions  and  offices,  a  commission  from 
heaven,  is  false  to  the  law  of  its  own  being.  The  moral 
finds  its  source  and  centre  only  in  God.  There  can  be  no 
rights  without  responsibility,  and  responsibility  is  incom- 
plete until  it  terminates  in  a  supreme  will.  The  earthly 
sanctions  of  the  State,  its  rewards  and  punishments,  are 
insufficient  either  for  the  punishment  of  vice  or  the  encour- 
agement of  virtue,  unless  they  connect  themselves  with  the 
higher  sanctions  which  religion  discloses.  If  the  State  had 
to  deal  only  with  natures  confessedly  mortal;  if  its  subjects 
were  conscious  of  no  other  life  than  that  which  they  bear 
from  the  cradle  to  the  grave  ;  if  their  prospect  terminated 
at  death  ;  if  they  were  only  brutes  of  a  more  finished  make, 
but  equally  destined  to  everlasting  extinction,  who  does  not 
see  that  the  law  would  lose  its  terror,  and  obedience  be 
stripped  of  its  dignity.  The  moral  nature  of  man  is  insep- 
arably linked  with  immortality,  and  immortality  as  insep- 
arably linked  with  religion.  Among  Pagan  idolaters,  the 
instinct  of  immortality,  though  not  developed  into  a  doc- 
trine, nor  realized  as  a  fact  in  reflection,  is  yet  the  secret 
power  which,  in  the  spontaneous  workings  of  the  soul,  gives 
efficacy  to  punishment,  and  energy  to  rewards.  Man  feels 
himself  immortal,  and  this  feeling,  though  operating  blind- 
ly, colors  his  hopes  and  his  fears.  The  State,  therefore, 
which  should  undertake  to  accomplish  the  ends  of  its  being, 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


9 


without  taking  into  account  the  religious  element  in  man, 
palsies  its  own  arm.  Subjects  that  have  no  religion  are 
incapable  of  law.  Eules  of  prudence  they  may  institute  ; 
measures  of  precaution  they  may  adopt;  a  routine  of 
coercion  and  constraint  they  may  establish ;  but  laAvs  they 
cannot  have.  They  may  be  governed  like  a  lunatic  asylum ; 
but  where  there  is  no  nature  which  responds  to  the  sentiment 
of  duty,  there  is  no  nature  which  confesses  the  majesty  of 
law.  Every  State,  therefore,  must  have  a  religion,  or  it 
must  cease  to  be  a  government  of  men.  Hence  no  Com- 
monwealth has  ever  existed  without  religious  sanctions. 
^'Whether  true  or  false,  sublime  or  ridiculous,"  says  the 
author  of  the  Consulate  and  the  Empire,  "man  must  have 
a  religion.  Every  where,  in  all  ages,  in  all  countries,  in 
ancient  as  in  modern  times,  in  civilized  as  well  as  in  barba- 
rian nations,  we  find  him  a  worshipper  at  some  altar,  be  it 
venerable,  degraded,  or  blood-stained." 

It  is  not  only  necessary  that  the  State  should  have  a 
religion ;  it  is  equally  necessary,  in  order  to  an  adequate  ful- 
filment of  its  own  idea,  that  it  have  the  true  religion.  Truth 
is  the  only  proper  food  of  the  soul,  and  though  superstition 
and  error  may  avail  for  a  time  as  external  restraints,  they 
never  generate  an  inward  principle  of  obedience.  They 
serve  as  outward  motives,  but  never  become  an  inward  life, 
and  when  the  falsehood  comes  to  be  detected,  the  mind  is 
apt  to  abandon  itself  to  unrestrained  licentiousness.  The 
reaction  is  violent  in  proportion  to  the  intensity  of  the  pre- 
vious delusion.  The  most  formidable  convulsions  in  States 
are  those  which  have  been  consequent  upon  the  detection 
of  religious  imposture.  "  When  a  religion,"  says  McCosh, 
"  waxes  old  in  a  country — when  the  circumstances  which 
at  first  favored  its  formation  or  introduction  have  changed 
— when  in  an  age  of  reason  it  is  tried  and  found  unreason- 
able— when  in  an  age  of  learning  it  is  discovered  to  be  the 
product  of  the  grossest  ignorance — when  in  an  age  of  levity 
it  is  felt  to  be  too  stern — then  the  infidel  spirit  takes  cour- 
2 


10 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


age,  and,  witli  a  zeal  in  whicli  there  is  a  strange  mixture 
of  scowling  revenge  and  liglit-hearted  wantonness,  of  deep- 
set  hatred  and  laughing  levity,  it  proceeds  to  level  all  exist- 
ing temples  and  altars,  and  erects  no  others  in  their  room." 
The  void  which  is  created  is  soon  filled  with  w^antonness 
and  violence.  The  State  cannot  be  restored  to  order  until 
it  settles  down  upon  some  form  of  religion  again.  As  the 
subjects  of  a  State  must  have  a  religion  in  order  to  be  truly 
obedient,  and  as  it  is  the  true  religion  alone  which  converts 
obedience  into  a  living  principle,  it  is  obvious  that  a  Com- 
monwealth can  no  more  be  organized,  which  shall  recog- 
nize all  religions,  than  one  which  shall  recognize  none. 
The  sanctions  of  its  laws  must  have  a  centre  of  unity 
some  where.  To  combine  in  the  same  government  contra- 
dictory systems  of  faith,  is  as  hopelessly  impossible  as  to  con- 
stitute into  one  State  men  of  different  races  and  languages. 
The  Christian,  the  Pagan,  Mohammedan ;  Jews,  Infidels  and 
Turks,  cannot  coalesce  as  organic  elements  in  one  body 
politic.  The  State  must  take  its  religious  type  from  the 
doctrines,  the  precepts,  and  the  institutions  of  one  or  the 
other  of  these  parties. 

When  we  insist  upon  the  religious  character  of  the  State, 
we  are  not  to  be  understood  as  recommending  or  favoring 
a  Church  Establishment,  To  have  a  religion  is  one  thing — 
to  have  a  Church  Establishment  is  another ;  and  perhaps 
the  most  efiectual  way  of  extinguishing  the  religious  life 
of  a  State  is  to  confine  the  expression  of  it  to  the  forms 
and  peculiarities  of  a  single  sect.  The  Church  and  the 
State,  as  visible  institutions,  are  entirely  distinct,  and 
neither  can  usurp  the  province  of  the  other  without  injury 
to  both.  But  religion,  as  a  life,  as  an  inward  principle, 
though  specially  developed  and  fostered  by  the  Church, 
extends  its  domain  beyond  the  sphere  of  technical  worship, 
touches  all  the  relations  of  man,  and  constitutes  the  inspi- 
ration of  every  duty.  The  service  of  the  Commonwealth 
becomes  an  act  of  piety  to  Grod.    The  State  realizes  its 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


11 


religious  character  through  the  religious  character  of  its 
subjects  ;  and  a  State  is  and  ought  to  be  Christian,  because 
all  its  subjects  are  and  ought  to  be  determined  by  the  prin- 
ciples of  the  Gospel.  As  every  legislator  is  bound  to  be 
a  Christian  man,  he  has  no  right  to  vote  for  any  laws  which 
are  inconsistent  with  the  teachings  of  the  Scriptures.  He 
must  carry  his  Christian  conscience  into  the  halls  of  leg- 
islation. 

In  conformity  with  these  principles,  we  recognize  Chris- 
tianity to-day  as  the  religion  of  our  Commonwealth.  Our 
standard  of  right  is  that  eternal  law  which  God  proclaimed 
from  Sinai,  and  which  Jesus  expounded  on  the  Mount. 
"We  recognize  our  responsibility  to  Jesus  Christ.  He  is 
head  over  all  things  to  the  Church,  and  the  nation  that  will 
not  serve  Him  is  doomed  to  perish.  Before  men  we  are  a 
free  and  sovereign  State  ;  before  God  we  are  dependent 
subjects  ;  and  one  of  the  most  cheering  omens  of  the  times 
is  the  heartiness  with  which  this  truth  has  been  received. 
"VYe  are  a  Christian  people,  and  a  Christian  Commonwealth. 
As  on  the  one  hand  we  are  not  Jews,  Infidels  or  Turks,  so 
on  the  other,  we  are  not  Presbyterians,  Baptists,  Episcopa- 
lians, or  Methodists.  Christianity,  without  distinction 
of  sects,  is  the  fountain  of  our  national  life.  We  accept 
the  Bible  as  the  great  moral  charter  by  which  our  laws 
must  be  measured,  and  the  Incarnate  Redeemer  as  the 
Judge  to  whom  we  are  responsible. 

In  contending  that  Christianity  is  the  organic  life  of  the 
State,  we  of  course  do  not  exclude  from  the  privileges  of 
citizens,  nor  from  the  protection  of  the  laws,  those  who  do 
not  acknowledge  the  authority  of  Jesus.  They  do  not  cease 
to  be  men,  because  they  are  not  Christians,  and  Christian 
principle  exacts  that  their  rights  should  be  sacredly  main- 
tained by  an  institute  which  is  founded  in  the  idea  of 
justice.  As,  moreover,  the  religion  of  the  State  realizes 
itself  through  the  religious  life  of  its  subjects,  it  is  not  to 
be  supported  by  arbitrary  tests  or  by  civil  pains  and  disa- 


12 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


bilities.  Religion  is  essentially  free  and  spontaneous.  It 
cannot  be  enacted  as  a  law,  nor  enforced  by  authority. 
When  the  State  protects  its  outward  institutions,  such  as 
the  sanctity  of  the  Sabbath,  it  enjoins  nothiug  which  does 
violence  to  any  man's  conscience.  It  is  only  giving  vent 
to  the  religious  life  of  the  people,  without  exacting  from 
others  what  they  feel  it  sinful  to  perform ;  and  so  long  as 
freedom  of  conscience  and  the  protection  of  their  rights 
are  secured  to  men,  they  have  no  reason  to  complain  that 
they  are  not  permitted  to  unsettle  the  principles  upon 
which  all  law  and  order  ultimately  rest.  As  long  as  they 
are  not  required  to  profess  what  they  do  not  believe,  nor  to 
do  what  their  consciences  condemn ;  as  long  as  they  are 
excluded  from  no  privilege  and  deprived  of  no  right,  they 
cannot  complain  that  the  spirit  and  sanction  of  the  laws 
are  a  standing  protest  against  their  want  of  sympathy  with 
the  prevailing  type  of  national  life.  If  Christianity  be  true, 
they  ought  certainly  to  be  Christians.  The  claim  of  this 
religion,  in  contradistinction  from  every  other,  or  from 
none  at  all,  is  founded  only  in  its  truth.  If  true,  it  must 
be  authoritative,  and  the  people  who  accept  it  as  true 
would  be  traitors  to  their  faith  if  they  did  not  mould  their 
institutions  in  conformity  with  its  spirit.  It  is  only  as  a 
sanction,  and  not  as  a  law,  that  we  plead  for  its  influence ; 
and  how  a  Christian  people  can  have  any  other  than  Chris- 
tian institutions,  it  surpasses  our  intelligence  to  compass. 
That  the  State  should  treat  all  religions  w^ith  equal  indif- 
ference, is  to  suppose  that  the  subjects  of  the  State  can 
have  a  double  life,  flowing  in  parallel  streams,  which  never 
approach  nor  touch — a  life  as  citizens,  and  a  life  as  men.  It 
is  to  forget  the  essential  unity  of  man,  and  the  convergence 
of  all  the  energies  of  his  being  to  a  religious  centre.  It  is 
to  forget  that  religion  is  the  perfection  of  his  nature,  and 
that  he  realizes  the  idea  of  humanity  in  proportion  as  reli- 
gion pervades  his  whole  being.  A  godless  State  is,  in  fact, 
a  contradiction  in  terms;  and  if  we  must  have  some  god,  or 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


13 


cease  to  be  citizens  because  we  have  ceased  to  be  men, 
who  will  hesitate  between  the  God  of  the  Bible  and  the 
absurd  devices  of  human  superstition  and  depravity  ? 

It  is,  then,  before  the  Supreme  Jehovah  that  we  prostrate 
ourselves  to-day.  We  come  as  a  Commonwealth  ordained 
bv  Him.  We  come  as  His  creatures  and  His  subjects. 
The  sword  by  which  we  have  executed  justice,  we  received 
from  His  hands.  We  believe  that  He  is — that  He  is  our 
God ;  that  His  favor  is  life,  and  His  loving  kindness  better 
than  life.  We  ascribe  to  His  grace  the  institutions  under 
which  we  have  flourished.  We  trace  to  His  hands  the 
blessings  which  have  distinguished  our  lot.  Under  Him 
the  foundations  of  the  State  were  laid,  and  to  Him  we  owe 
whatsoever  is  valuable  in  our  laws,  healthful  in  our  customs, 
or  precious  in  our  history.  We  come  this  day  to  acknowl- 
edge our  dependence,  swear  our  allegiance,  and  confess  our 
responsibility.  By  Him  we  exist  as  a  State,  and  to  Him 
we  must  answer  for  the  manner  in  which  we  have  discharged 
our  trust.  "  God  standeth  in  the  congregation  of  the  mighty. 
He  judgeth  among  the  gods.'' 

n.  Having  explained  the  spirit  in  which  we  should 
approach  God,  let  me  call  your  attention,  in  the  next  place, 
to  the  ERRAND  which  brings  us  before  Him  this  day — fast- 
ing, humiliation,  and  prayer.  These  terms  define  the 
worship  which  we  are  expected  to  present.  Fasting  is  the 
outward  sign ;  penitence  and  prayer  are  the  inward  graces. 
In  fasting,  we  relinquish  for  a  season  the  bounties  of  Provi- 
dence, in  token  our  conviction,  that  we  have  forfeited  all 
claim  to  our  daily  bread.  It  is  a  symbolical  confession 
that  we  deserve  to  be  stripped  of  every  gift,  and  left  to 
perish  in  hunger,  nakedness,  and  want.  On  occasions  of 
solemn  moment,  and  particularly  when  "manifestations  of 
the  Divine  anger  appear,  as  pestilence,  war,  and  famine, 
the  salutary  custom  of  all  ages  has  been  for  pastors  to 
exhort  the  people  to  public  fasting  and  extraordinary 
prayer."    Through  such  a  solemnity  Nineveh  was  saved; 


14 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


and  if  we  are  equally  penitent,  who  shall  say  that  we  may 
not  also  be  delivered  from  the  judgments  which  our  sins 
have  provoked  ?  Fasting,  apart  from  inward  penitence,  is 
an  idle  mockery.  Is  it  such  a  fast  as  1  have  chosen  ?  a  day 
for  a  man  to  afflict  his  soul  ?  is  it  to  how  down  his  head  as  a 
bulrush,  and  to  spread  sackcloth  and  ashes  under  him?  wilt 
thou  call  this  a  fast  and  an  acceptahle  day  to  the  Lord  ?  Is 
not  this  the  fast  that  I  have  chosen  f  to  loose  the  hands  of  wick- 
edness, to  undo  the  heavy  hardens,  and  to  let  the  oppressed  go 
free,  and  that  ye  hreak  every  yoke  f  Is  it  not  to  deal  thy  hread 
to  the  hungry,  and  that  thou  hring  the  poor  that  are  cast  out  to 
thy  house  f  when  thou  seest  the  naked  that  thou  cover  him  ;  and 
that  thou  hide  not  thyself  from  thine  own  flesh  ?  The  great 
thing  with  us  to-day  is,  to  be  impressed  with  a  sense  of 
our  sins  as  a  people;  to  confess  them  humbly  before  God; 
to  deprecate  His  judgments,  and  to  supplicate  His  favor. 
"We  are  too  apt  to  restrict  the  notion  of  sin  in  its  proper 
sense  to  the  sphere  of  the  individual ;  to  regard  it  as  alto- 
gether private  and  personal,  and  not  capable  of  being- 
predicated  of  the  mal-administration  of  the  State.  But  if 
the  State  is  a  moral  institute,  responsible  to  God,  and  exist- 
ing for  moral  and  spiritual  ends,  it  is  certainly  a  subject 
capable  of  sin.  It  may  endure,  too,  the  penalty  of  sin, 
either  in  its  organic  capacity,  by  national  judgments,  by 
war,  pestilence,  weakness,  and  dissolution,  or  in  its  indi- 
vidual subjects,  whose  offences  as  citizens  are  as  distinctly 
transgressions  as  any  other  forms  of  iniquity,  and  enter  into 
the  grounds  of  the  Divine  dispensation^  towards  them. 
The  State  exists  under  a  law  which  defines  its  duty.  It  is 
a  means  to  an  end,  which  limits  its  powers  and  determines  its 
functions.  It  is  the  realization  of  an  idea.  Like  an  indi- 
vidual, it  may  sin  by  defect  in  coming  short  of  its  duty, 
and  sin  by  positive  contradiction  to  it.  It  may  fail  to  com- 
prehend its  vocation ;  it  may  arrogate  too  much,  or  claim 
too  little.  It  may  be  wanting  in  public  spirit,  or  it  may 
give  public  spirit  a  wrong  direction.    It  may  subordinate 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


15 


the  spiritual  to  the  material,  and,  in  encouraging  the  in- 
crease of  national  wealth,  neglect  to  foster  national  great- 
ness. In  aspiring  to  be  rich  and  increased  in  goods,  it  may 
forget  that  the  real  glory  of  a  nation  is  to  be  free,  intelli- 
gent, and  virtuous.  The  power  which  it  has  received  as 
an  instrument  of  good,  it  may  pervert  into  an  engine  of 
tyranny.  It  may  disregard  the  welfare  and  prosperity  of 
its  subjects,  and  degenerate  into  a  tool  for  the  selfish  pur- 
poses of  unscrupulous  rulers.  It  may  seek  to  aggrandize 
factions,  instead  of  promoting  the  well-being  of  the 
people.  The  State,  too,  as  a  moral  person,  stands  in  rela- 
tions to  other  States,  in  consequence  of  which  it  may  be 
guilty  of  bad  faith,  of  inordinate  ambition,  of  covetousness, 
rapacity,  and  selfishness.  The  same  vices  which  degrade 
the  individual  among  his  fellows,  may  degrade  a  common- 
wealth among  surrounding  nations.  It  may  be  mean,  vora- 
cious, insolent,  extortionary.  It  may  cringe  to  the  strong, 
and  oppress  the  weak.  It  may  take  unworthy  advantages 
of  the  necessities  of  its  neighbors,  or  make  unworthy  con- 
cessions for  temporary  purposes.  The  same  laws  regulate, 
and  the  same  crimes  disfigure,  the  intercourse  of  States  with 
one  another,  which  obtain  in  the  case  of  individuals.  The 
political  relations  of  the  one  are  precisely  analogous  to  the 
social  relations  of  the  other.  The  same  standard  of  honor, 
of  integrity  and  magnanimity  which  is  incumbent  upon 
their  subjects,  is  equally  binding  upon  the  States  them- 
selves, and  character  ought  to  be  as  sacred  among  sovereign 
States  as  among  private  individuals. 

The  true  light,  therfore,  in  which  national  defects  and 
transgressions  should  be  contemplated,  is  formally  that  of 
sin  against  God.  Their  injustice  to  their  people  is  treach- 
ery to  Him,  and  their  failure  to  comprehend  or  to  seek  to 
fulfil  the  end  of  their  being,  is  contempt  of  the  Divine 
authority.  We  take  too  low  a  view,  when  we  regard  their 
errors  simply  as  impolitic ;  their  real  magnitude  and  enor- 


16 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


mity  we  can  never  apprehend  until  we  see  them  in  the 
light  of  sins. 

It  is  to  be  feared  that  this  notion  of  sin  has  not  the  hold 
which  it  should  have  of  the  public  conscience.  We  are 
not  accustomed  to  judge  of  the  State  by  the  same  canons 
of  responsibility  which  we  apply  to  individuals.  In  some 
way  or  other,  the  notion  of  sovereignty,  which  only  defines 
the  relation  of  a  State  to  earthly  tribunals,  affects  our  views 
of  its  relations  to  God ;  and,  whilst  we  charge  it  with  errors, 
with  blunders,  with  unfaithfulness  to  its  trust,  and  deplore 
the  calamities  which  its  misconduct  brings  upon  its  subjects 
as  public  evils,  we  lose  sight  of  the  still  more  solemn  truth, 
that  these  aberrations  are  the  actions  of  a  moral  agent,  and 
must  be  answered  for  at  the  bar  of  God.  The  moral  law 
is  one,  and  the  State  is  bound  to  do  its  duty,  under  the 
same  sanctions  which  pertain  to  the  individual.  When  the 
State  fails,  or  transgresses,  its  offences  are  equally  abomina- 
tions in  the  sight  of  God.  It  is  clearly  idle  to  talk  of  national 
repentance,  without  the  consciousness  of  national  sin.  This 
doctrine,  therefore,  I  would  impress  upon  you  in  every  form 
of  statement,  that  the  misconduct  of  the  State  is  rebellion 
against  God,  and  that  a  nation  which  comes  short  of  its 
destination,  and  is  faithless  to  its  trust,  is  stained  with  sin 
of  the  most  malignant  dye.  God  may  endure  it  in  patience 
for  a  season,  but  it  is  loathsome  and  abominable  in  His 
eyes,  and  the  day  of  reckoning  will  at  last  come.  Sin  must 
either  be  pardoned  or  punished,  confessed  and  forsaken, 
or  it  will  work  death.  Sin  has  been  the  ruin  of  every  Em- 
pire that  ever  flourished  and  fell.  Assyria,  Persia,  Greece, 
and  Rome,  have  paid  the  penalties  to  the  Divine  law.  The 
only  alternative  with  States,  as  with  their  subjects,  is,  repent 
or  perish.  The  first  duty,  therefore,  which,  as  a  Christian 
people,  we  should  endeavor  to  discharge  this  day,  is  to  con- 
fess our  national  sins  with  humility  and  penitence.  We 
should  endeavor  to  feel  their  magnitude  and  enormity,  not 
as  injuries  to  man,  but  as  offences  against  the  majesty  of 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


17 


God.  Our  language  should  be  that  of  David:  Against  Thee, 
Thee  onI</^  have  ice  sinned^  and  done  this  evil  in  thy  sight. 

Another  errand  which  it  behooves  us  equally  to  prose- 
cute to-day  is.  to  seek  Divine  guidance  and  Divine  strength 
for  the  future.  It  is  not  in  man  that  walketh  to  direct  his  steps, 
and  States  are  no  more  competent  than  individuals  to 
discharge  their  duties  without  the  grace  of  God.  Let  tis 
endeavor  to  cherish  a  sense  of  our  dependence,  and  aspire 
to  the  distinction  of  that  happy  people  whose  God  is  ths 
Lord.  It  is  a  great  thing  to  contemplate  our  civil  duties 
iu  the  light  of  obedience  to  Him :  and  when  they  are 
undertaken  in  the  spirit  of  worship,  they  are  likely  to  be 
performed  in  the  spirit  of  taithfulness.  Lf  we  are  truly 
penitent,  and  truly  sensi\)le  of  our  dependence  upon  God ; 
if  it  is  the  reigning  desire  of  our  hearts  to  know  His  will, 
and  our  fixed  purpose,  in  reliance  on  His  strength,  to  do  it. 
He  may  give  us  an  answer  of  peace.  He  may  bring  light  otit 
of  darkness,  and  extract  safety  from  danger. 

Having  indicated  the  spirit  in  which  we  shotild  approach 
God.  and  pointed  out  the  purposes  for  which  we  should  go, 
it  remains  that  we  apply  the  truth  to  our  present  circum- 
stances, by  signalizing  the  sins  which  it  behooves  us  to  con- 
fess, and  by  designating  the  blessings  which  it  behooves  us 
to  implore.  The  conscience  is  never  touched  by  vagtie 
generalities :  we  must  come  to  particulars  :  thus  and  thus 
hast  thou  done.  The  State  appears  as  a  penitent  this  day. 
She  has,  therefore,  sins  to  confess.  There  is  a  bm-den  upon 
her  heart  which  must  needs  be  relieved.  What  are  these 
sins  ?  What  is  this  burden  ?  The  completeness  of  our 
answer  to  these  qtiestions  will  measure  the  extent  and  sin- 
cerity of  our  repentance. 

To  understand  our  sins,  we  must  look  at  ourselves  iu  a 
double  light :  first,  as  a  member  of  this  Confederacy,  as 
part  and  parcel  of  the  people  of  these  United  States :  and, 
in  the  next  place,  as  a  particular  Commonwealth,  a  perfect 
State  in  otirselves.    As  long  as  we  are  members  of  this 


18 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


Confederacy  we  cannot  detach  ourselves  from  a  personal 
interest  in  the  sins  and  transgressions  of  the  whole  people ; 
and,  though  there  may  be  offences  in  which  we  have  had 
no  actual  participation,  we  are  not  at  liberty  to  indulge  in 
a  seif-righteous  temper,  nor  to  employ  the  language  of 
recrimination  and  reproach.  The  spectacle  of  sin  is  always 
sad.  The  fall  of  none  should  be  contemplated  with  exul- 
tation or  with  triumph.  We  should  look  upon  the  errors 
of  our  brethren  Avith  pity  and  with  sorrow,  and,  as  Daniel 
confessed,  in  humility  and  contrition,  and  with  deep  com- 
miseration for  their  misery,  the  sins  of  his  people,  so  we 
should  endeavor  this  day  to  deplore  the  shortcomings  of 
our  common  country,  as  a  matter  of  personal  distress  to 
ourselves.  When  we  come  before  €rod,  we  should  endeavor 
to  contemplate  the  moral  aspects  of  the  country  in  the  light 
of  His  awful  holiness.  And  the  more  profoundly  we  are 
impressed  with  the  malignity  of  our  national  guilt,  the 
deeper  should  be  our  concern  for  the  transgressors  them- 
selves. Sinners  cannot  triumph  over  sinners.  Those 
whose  only  plea  is  mercy  to  themselves,  ought  not  to  be 
unmerciful  to  others.  Much  more  should  we  be  filled  with 
sorrow  when  the  sins  we  deplore  are  likely  to  prove  the 
ruin  of  a  great  nation.  To  behold  a  vast,  imperial  repub- 
lic, like  ours,  bequeathed  to  us  by  a  noble  ancestry,  conse- 
crated by  a  noble  history,  the  work  of  illustrious  statesmen 
and  patriots,  falling  a  prey  to  national  degeneracy  and  cor- 
ruption, is  enough  to  make  angels  weep,  and  should  wring 
from  our  hearts  tears  of  bitterness  and  blood.  The  sin  must 
be  enormous  where  the  punishment  is  so  fearful.  In  less 
than  a  century  we  have  spoiled  the  legacy  of  our  fathers.  A 
Christian  people,  with  Christian  institutions,  the  envy  and 
admiration  of  the  world,  have  not  lived  to  the  age  of  pagan 
Greece.  Surely,  God  has  a  controversy  with  us,  and  it 
becomes  us  to  inquire,  with  all  solemnity,  into  the  cause  of 
His  fierce  anger.  The  union,  which  our  fathers  designed 
to  be  perpetual,  is  on  the  verge  of  dissolution.   A  name  once 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


19 


dear  to  our  hearts,  has  become  intolerable  to  entire  States. 
Once  admired,  loved,  almost  adored,  as  the  citadel  and  safe- 
guard of  freedom,  it  has  become,  in  many  minds,  synonymous 
with  oppression,  with  treachery,  with  falsehood,  and  with 
violence.  The  o-overnment  to  which  we  once  invited  the 
victims  of  tyranny  from  every  part  of  the  world,  and  under 
whose  ample  shield  we  gloried  in  promising  them  security 
and  protection — that  government  has  become  hateful  in 
the  very  regions  in  which  it  was  once  hailed  with  the 
greatest  loyalty.  Brother  has  risen  up  against  brother, 
State  against  State ;  angry  disputes  and  bitter  crimina- 
tions and  recriminations  abound,  and  the  country  stands 
upon  the  very  brink  of  revolution.  Surely,  it  is  time  to 
come  to  ourselves;  to  look  our  follies  and  our  wickednesses 
in  the  face ;  time  for  every  patriot  to  rend  his  garments, 
cover  himself  with  sackcloth,  and  come  into  the  house  of 
the  Lord.  Let  us  deal  faithfully  this  day;  let  us  survey 
the  sins  of  the  land,  not  to  accuse  one  another,  but  to 
humble  ourselves  under  the  mighty  hand  of  God. 

1.  To  appreciate  the  sins  which  attach  to  us  in  our  unity 
as  a  confederated  people,  we  must  advert  for  a  moment  to 
the  peculiar  structure  of  our  government.  When  we  came 
out  of  the  Revolution,  it  is  admitted  on  all  hands  that  we 
were  separate  and  independent  States.  Each  was  sovereign 
— that  is,  completely  a  nation  in  itself ;  but  our  fathers 
looked  around  them,  and  saw  that  the  grounds  of  unity 
were  as  conspicuous  as  the  elements  of  diversity.  The 
people  were  of  one  blood,  one  language,  one  religion. 
They  were,  in  short,  one  race.  They  surveyed  the  conti- 
nent from  north  to  south,  from  east  to  west,  and  its  geog- 
raphy indicated  that  it  ought  to  be  the  dwelling-place  of  a 
united  population.  While  there  were  differences  in  soil, 
climate,  and  productions,  that  would  naturally  develope 
different  types  of  industry,  and  give  rise  to  different  forms 
of  interest,  there  were  great  connecting  bonds  in  the 
mighty  rivers  which  traversed  the  country,  that  as  clearly 


20 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


signified  that  the  diversity  was  not  inconsistent  with  unity. 
The  problem,  accordingly,  which  the  wisdom  of  our  ances- 
tors undertook  to  solve  was,  to  harmonize  this  diversity  with 
unity ;  to  make  the  people,  who  were  already  many,  at  the 
same  time,  one.  One-  nation,  in  the  strict  and  proper  sense, 
they  could  never  become ;  that  would  be  to  absorb  the 
diversity  in  unity.  Many  nations,  in  all  the  relations  of 
sovereign  States,  they  could  not  be ;  that  would  be  to 
abolish  the  unity  altogether.  The  problem  was  solved 
by  a  happy  application  of  the  federal  principle.  The 
diversity  existed  already  in  the  many  States  which  had  just 
achieved  their  independence.  These  many  States,  in  the 
exercise  of  their  sovereignty,  formed  an  alliance,  which 
cemented  them  together  in  one  body  politic.  This  alliance 
was,  in  its  principle,  a  treaty,  and  in  its  result,  a  govern- 
ment. In  its  principle  it  was  a  treaty,  because  it  was  a 
compact  among  sovereigns.  In  its  result  it  was  a  govern- 
ment, because  it  created  organs  of  political  power  which, 
under  certain  conditions,  acted  immediately  upon  the  people 
of  all  the  States,  without  the  formal  ratification  of  their  own 
Legislatures,  and  in  all  foreign  relations  stood  as  the  repre- 
sentative of  their  common  sovereignty.  It  is  obvious  that 
the  ultimate  ground  of  the  authority  of  federal  legislation 
is  the  consent  of  the  confederating  States.  The  laws  of 
Congress  bind  me,  only  because  South  Carolina  has  con- 
sented that  I  should  be  bound.  The  rights  of  Congress 
are  only  the  concessions  of  the  sovereign  States.  This  will 
appear  from  a  moment's  reflection.  It  is  obvious  that  the 
States  might  have  required  that  no  measures  of  the  Federal 
Government  should  be  of  force  within  their  own  borders, 
without  the  formal  sanction  of  their  own  Legislatures.  In 
that  case,  there  could  have  been  no  dispute  as  to  the  ulti- 
mate ground  of  obedience.  The  difiiculties  of  such  an 
arrangement  are  too  obvious  to  be  enumerated,  but  how 
were  these  difiaculties  to  be  avoided  ?  By  surrendering  the 
principle  on  which  the  authority  of  Congress  depended,  or 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


21 


by  changing  the  mode  of  its  application  ?  To  have  surren- 
dered the  principle  would  have  been  to  abjure  their  own 
sovereignty.  There  was  evidently,  then,  only  a  change  in 
the  mode  of  its  application.  That  change  consisted  in  defin- 
ing the  conditions  under  which  consent  might  be  presumed 
beforehand.  The  Constitution  of  the  United  States,  in  its 
grants  of  power  to  Congress,  is  only  a  device  by  which  a 
general  description  is  given,  in  advance,  of  the  kind  of  legis- 
tion  that  each  State  will  allow  to  be  obligatory  on  its  own 
people.  The  provisions  of  the  Constitution  are  really 
anticipations  of  the  concurrence  of  the  States.  They  are 
formal  declarations  to  the  Federal  Legislature,  that  within 
such  and  such  limits,  you  have  our  consent  to  bind  our 
people.  In  this  way  our  fathers  organized  a  government 
that  united  us  for  all  common  purposes,  and  left  us  in  our 
original  diversity  to  prosecute  our  separate  and  local  inter- 
ests. Congress  is,  therefore,  only  the  creature  of  the  States, 
and  acts  only  through  them.  It  is  their  consent,  their 
treaty,  which  gives  to  its  enactments  the  validity  of  law. 
As  the  Federal  Legislature  was  clearly  designed  to  realize 
the  unity  of  the  people,  its  powers  are  restricted,  from  the 
very  necessities  of  the  case,  to  those  points  in  which  all  the 
States  have  a  common  interest.  The  creature  of  a  treaty, 
in  which  the  contracting  parties  were  all  equal,  it  is  mani- 
festly the  servant,  and  not  the  master,  of  the  States.  It  is 
an  agent,  and  not  a  principal. 

If  this  view  of  the  subject  be  correct,  the  Federal  Gov- 
ernment is  preeminently  a  government,  whose  very  exist- 
ence depends  upon  a  scrupulous  adherence  to  good  faith. 
It  requires  the  sternest  integrity  to  work  it.  Its  very  life- 
blood  is  honor.  ]^ow,  there  are  two  respects  in  which  it 
may  fatally  err.  In  the  first  place,  Congress  may  transcend 
its  powers,  and  thus  be  guilty  of  a  breach  of  trust,  and  of 
disloyalty  to  its  own  masters.  It  may  presume  upon  the 
consent  of  the  States,  where  no  consent  has  been  given. 
It  may  forget  that  it  is  a  servant,  and  aspire  to  be  lord.  It 


22 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


may  forget  tliat  it  is  an  agent,  and  arrogate  to  itself  the 
rights  and  authority  of  the  principaL  When  it  surveys  the 
extent  of  its  jurisdiction,  the  amount  of  its  patronage,  and 
the  weight  of  its  influence  abroad,  it  may  become  dazzled 
with  the  contemplation  of  its  own  greatness,  and  attribute 
to  itself  the  light  that  is  reflected  upon  it.  Its  one  people 
it  may  construe  into  one  nation,  and,  unmindful  of  its  ori- 
gin, treat  the  sovereignties  which  created  it  as  dependent 
provinces.  Treating  upon  a  footing  of  equality  with  for- 
eign Powers,  it  may  insensibly  ascribe  to  itself  the  autho- 
rity of  Kings  and  Emperors.  All  this  is  conceivable  ;  to 
some  extent  it  is  inevitable,  unless  the  most  scrupulous 
integrity  should  reign  in  the  Federal  Councils.  But  to 
sin  in  any  of  these  respects  is  fraud,  and  fraud  connected 
with  treason.  In  the  next  place,  the  States  may  break 
faith  with  one  another.  Thej^  may  refuse  to  fulfil  their 
engagements.  They  may  pervert  the  Federal  authorities 
to  the  accomplishment  of  selfish  and  sectional  ends.  They 
may  undertake  to  make  their  common  agent  the  minister 
of  partial  advantages,  or  they  may  use  lawful  powers  for 
unlawful  purposes.  Here,  too,  in  the  relation  of  the  States 
to  each  other,  is  wide  scope  for  fraud. 

In  one,  or  in  both  these  directions,  we  may  look  for 
instances  of  national  transgression ;  and  on  this  day,  we 
should  solemnly  review  the  history  of  the  Republic,  for  the 
purpose  of  bringing  our  consciences  before  the  tribunal  of 
God.  Perfidy,  under  all  circumstances,  is  an  aggravated 
sin  ;  but  when  it  brings  in  its  train  the  destruction  of 
institutions  which  have  been  the  hope  and  admiration  of 
the  world  ;  when  it  subverts  the  foundations  of  a  great 
empire,  scattering  the  seeds  of  dissension,  bitterness  and 
strife  ;  when  it  arms  house  against  house,  and  State  against 
State,  and  converts  a  happy  union  into  a  scene  of  implaca- 
ble and  deadly  feuds,  language  is  hardly  competent  to 
describe  the  enormity  of  the  guilt.  The  fraud  which 
makes  our  government  a  failure,  must  darken  the  prospects 


FAST-DAT  SERMON. 


23 


of  liberty  throughout  the  world.  No  polity  can  be  devised 
which  shall  perpetuate  freedom  among  a  people  that  are 
dead  to  honour  and  integritv.  Liberty  and  virtue  are  twin 
sisters,  and  the  best  fabric  in  the  world,  however  ingen- 
iously framed,  and  curioush^  balanced,  can  be  no  security 
ao^ainst  the  corrodino;  influences  of  bad  faith.  Perfldv  is 
always  weakness  ;  and  a  government  whose  basis  is  the 
faith  of  treaties,  must  inevitably  perish  before  it.  The 
combination  of  the  federal  principle  with  the  sovereignty 
of  States,  is  the  only  principle  which  can  maintain  free 
institutions  upon  a  broad  scale.  This  combination  can 
secure  freedom  to  a  continent ;  it  might  even  govern  the 
world.  The  day  of  small  States  is  passed,  and  as  the 
federal  principle  is  the  only  one  which  can  guarantee 
freedom  to  extensive  territories,  the  federal  principle 
must  constitute  the  hope  of  the  human  race.  It  was 
the  glory  of  this  country  to  have  lirst  applied  it  to 
the  formation  of  an  effective  government,  and,  had 
we  been  faithful  to  our  trust,  a  destiny  was  before  us  which 
it  has  never  been  the  lot  of  any  people  to  inherit.  It  was 
ours  to  redeem  this  continent,  to  spread  freedom,  civiliza- 
tion and  relio'ion  throuo'h  the  whole  leuo-th  of  the  land. 
Geographically  placed  between  Europe  and  Asia,  we  were, 
in  some  sense,  the  representatives  of  the  human  race.  The 
fortunes  of  the  world  were  in  our  hand.  We  were  a  city 
set  upon  a  hill,  whose  light  was  intended  to  shine  upon 
every  people  and  upon  every  land.  To  forego  this  destiny, 
to  forfeit  this  inheritance,  and  that  through  bad  faith,  is  an 
enormity  of  treason  equalled  only  by  the  treachery  of  a 
Judas,  who  betrayed  bis  master  with  a  kiss.  Favored  as 
we  have  been,  we  can  expect  to  perish  by  no  common 
death.  The  judgment  lingers  not,  and  the  damnation 
slumbers  not,  of  the  reprobates  and  traitors,  who,  for  the 
wages  ot  unrighteousness,  have  sapped  the  pillars  and 
undermined  the  foundations  of  the  stateliest  temple  of 
liberty  the  world  ever  beheld.    Rebellion  against  God,  and 


24 


FAST  DAY  SEEMON. 


treason  to  man,  are  combined  in  the  perfidy.  The  inno- 
cent may  be  spared,  as  Lot  was  delivered  from  the  destruc- 
tion of  Sodom;  but  the  guilty  must' perish  with  an  aggra- 
vated doom.  The  first  instances  of  transgression  may  seem 
slight  and  insignificant,  but  when  they  strike  at  the  prin- 
ciple of  good  faith,  like  a  puncture  of  the  heart,  they  strike 
at  the  root  of  our  national  life.  The  Union  was  conceived 
in  plighted  faith,  and  can  only  be  maintained  by  a  com- 
plete redemption  of  the  pledge.  The  moment  faith  is 
broken,  the  Union  is  dissolved.  Entertaining  these  views  of 
the  radical  relations  of  good  faith  to  the  success  and  stabil- 
ity of  our  government,  I  would  impress  upon  the  country 
the  flagrant  iniquity  of  dealing  loosely  with  its  covenants. 
It  is  here  that  our  dangers  are  concentrated,  and  here  we 
should  look  for  the  sins  that  have  provoked  the  judgments 
of  God.  Here  is  the  secret  of  our  bitter  strifes,  our  furious 
contention,  our  deadly  animosities ;  and,  should  this  Gov- 
ernment be  destined  to  fall,  the  epitaph  which  may  be  writ- 
ten on  its  tomb,  is  a  memorial  of  broken  faith. 

The  foregoing  remarks  are  general,  and  designed  to 
bring  no  railing  accusation  against  any  section  of  the 
country,  but  to  excite  every  part  of  it  to  a  faithful  review 
of  its  dealino^s  under  the  Constitution.  There  is  one  sub- 
ject,  however,  in  relation  to  which  the  non-slaveholding 
States  have  not  only  broken  faith,  but  have  justified  their 
course  upon  the  plea  of  conscience.  We  allude  to  the 
subject  of  slavery.  They  have  been  reluctant  to  open  the 
Territories  to  the  introduction  of  slaves,  and  have  refused 
to  restore  fugitives  to  their  masters,  and  have  vindicated 
themselves  from  blame  by  appealing  to  a  higher  law  than 
the  compacts  of  men.  The  doctrine  of  a  higher  law,  prop- 
erly interpreted  and  applied,  we  are  far  from  repudiating. 
God  is  greater  than  man,  and  no  human  covenants  can  set 
aside  or  annul  the  supreme  obligations  of  His  will.  But, 
in  the  present  case,  the  plea  is  improperly  applied.  If  it  is 
wrong  to  countenance  slavery  by  restoring  fugitives  to 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


25 


their  masters,  or  by  permitting  it  to  enter  into  the  Territo- 
ries, then  the  true  method  is  to  abrogate  the  contract  Avhich 
requires  both.  We  repent  of  sin  by  forsaking  it,  and  the 
only  way  to  undo  a  wicked  bargain  is  to  cancel  it.  If  the 
non-slaveholdino'  States  cannot  in  conscience  redeem  their 
faith,  they  are  bound  in  honor  to  take  back  their  pledges, 
to  withdraw  from  the  Union,  and  to  release  their  confed- 
erates from  all  the  conditions  of  the  contract,  l^o  other 
course  can  they  pursue  without  sin.  To  swear  to  observe 
the  Constitution,  when  the  Constitution  binds  them  to  do 
what  they  believe  to  be  wicked,  is  an  oath  which,  whether 
broken  or  kept,  cannot  be  taken  without  dishonor.  To 
keep  it,  is  to  violate  the  conscience  in  the  unlawful  article. 
To  break  it,  is  to  be  guilty  of  perjury.  The  only  escape 
from  this  dilemma  is,  not  to  take  it  at  all. 

But,  in  truth,  even  upon  the  supposition  that  slavery  is 
immoral,  there  is  nothing  wrong  in  the  oath  to  observe  the 
Constitution.  The  responsibility  of  slavery  is  not  upon 
the  non-slaveholding  States.  It  is  not  created  by  their  laws, 
but  by  the  laws  of  the  slaveholding  States;  and  all  they  do 
in  the  case  of  the  fugitive  from  his  master,  is  to  remand 
him  to  the  jurisdiction  of  the  laws  from  which  he  has 
escaped.  They  have  nothing  to  do  with  the  justice  or 
injustice  of  the  laws  themselves.  They  are  simply  required 
to  say  that  the  accident  of  being  on  their  soil  shall  not  dis- 
solve the  relation  between  a  subject  and  its  government. 
The  treaty  existing  among  the  States,  in  reference  to  this 
point,  is  precisely  analogous  to  a  treaty  among  foreign 
nations,  requiring  the  surrender  of  criminals  that  have  fled 
from  justice.  The  country  surrendering  passes  no  judg- 
ment upon  the  merits  of  the  case.  It  leaves  the  whole  of 
the  responsibility  to  the  laws  of  the  country  claiming  juris- 
diction. All  that  it  does  is  not  to  interpose  and  arrest  the 
operation  of  those  laws.  Surely,  there  is  nothing  unright- 
eous in  this ;  nothing  unrighteous  in  refusing  to  screen  a 
man  from  the  authority  of  the  code  under  which  Provi- 
4 


26 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


dence  has  cast  his  lot.  There  is  no  oblio^ation  to  do  it 
without  a  treaty  ;  but  tliere  is  nothing  inherently  unlawful 
in  making  such  a  treaty,  and  in  strictly  adhering  to  it  when 
made.  The  plea  of  conscience  proceeds  from  a  palpable 
misapprehension  of  the  nature  of  the  case. 

The  plea  is  still  more  flagrantly  inadequate  when  applied 
to  the  exclusion  of  slavery  from  the  Territories.  All  the 
States  have  confessedly  an  equal  right  of  property  in  them. 
They  are  a  joint  possession.  The  citizens  of  any  State 
may  go  there  and  take  up  their  abode,  and,  without  express 
contract  to  the  contrary  among  the  proprietors,  they  are  at 
liberty  to  observe  the  customs  of  their  own  States.  It  is  as 
if  the  land  were  distributed,  and  each  State  had  a  part.  In 
that  case,  each  State  would  evidently  put  its  part  under  the 
jurisdiction  of  its  own  laws.  The  joint  possession,  to  the 
extent  of  the  partnership,  places  the  Territory  in  the  same 
relation  to  the  laws  of  all  the  States.  One  has  no  more 
right  to  introduce  its  peculiarities  than  another,  and  with- 
out positive  contract  the  peculiarities  of  none  can  be 
excluded.  The  case  is  as  if  a  Christian  and  a  Pagan  people 
should  acquire  a  common  territory.  Would  it  be  compe- 
tent for  the  Christian  people,  in  the  absence  of  a  positive 
stipulation,  to  say  to  their  Pagan  neighbors,  You  shall  not 
bring  your  idols  into  this  land?  You  may  come  yourselves, 
but  you  come  only  on  condition  that  you  renounce  your 
worship  ?  If  there  is  any  wrong,  it  is  in  making  the  treaty 
at  first;  but  if  Christians  and  Pagans  can  enter  into  treaties 
at  all,  there  is  no  crime  in  observing  them.  If  they  can 
lawfully  acquire  joint  possession  of  a  soil,  the  Pagan  has 
as  much  rig-ht  to  introduce  his  idols  as  the  Christian  his 
purer  worship.  In  respect  to  the  question  of  slavery,  if 
there  is  wrong  any  where,  it  is  in  the  union  of  slaveholding 
and  non-slaveholding  States  in  one  confederacy;  but,  being 
confederate,  there  can  be  no  just  scruple  as  to  the  fulfillment 
of  their  contracts.  It  is  a  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  ITorth 
sanctions  slavery  by  doing  justice  to  the  South.    It  leaves 


FAST-DAY  SERMOX. 


27 


tlie  whole  responsibility  of  the  institution  where  God  has 
phaced  it,  among  the  people  of  the  South  themselves.  "We 
do  not  ask  the  ^STorth  to  introduce  it  upon  their  own  soil;  we 
do  not  ask  them  to  approve  it ;  we  do  not  ask  them  to 
speak  a  single  word  in  its  defence :  we  only  ask  them  to 
execute  in  good  faith  the  contract  which  has  been  solemnly 
ratified  betwixt  us.  We  ask  them  not  to  interfere  with  the 
jurisdiction  of  our  own  laws  over  our  own  subjects,  nor 
with  the  free  use  of  our  own  property  upon  our  own  soil. 
This  is  the  head  and  front  of  our  pretensions,  and  when 
these  reasonable  demands  are  met  by  the  plea  of  conscience 
and  the  authority  of  a  higher  law,  they  must  pardon  our 
dulless,  if  we  cannot  understand  that  delicate  sensibility 
to  honor  which  makes  no  scruple  of  an  oath  that  it  does 
not  mean  to  observe,  and  holds  to  the  profit,  without  ful- 
filling the  conditions,  of  the  contract.  When  they  ask  to 
be  released  from  their  engagements,  and,  in  token  of  their 
sincerity,  are  willing  to  release  us  from  ours ;  when  they 
are  willing  to  abandon  the  Union  rather  than  ensnare  their 
consciences ;  when  they  abhor  the  wages,  as  sincerely  as  the 
deeds,  of  unrighteousness — then,  and  not  till  then,  they  may 
expect  their  plea  to  be  admitted. 

2.  In  the  next  place,  we  shall  find  ample  ground  of 
humiliation,  if  we  consider  the  manner  in  which  the  organs 
of  Government  have  been  perverted  from  their  real  design, 
and  changed  in  their  essential  character.  All  our  institti- 
tions  are  representative.  We  legislate  by  parliaments,  we 
judge  by  courts,  and  we  execute  by  officers  appointed  for 
the  purpose.  The  people  in  their  collective  capacity  do 
nothing  but  choose  their  representatives.  They  enact  no 
laws ;  they  conduct  no  trials ;  they  execute  no  sentences. 
I^ow,  what  is  the  genius  and  spirit  of  a  representative  assem- 
bly? Is  it  to  give  expression  to  the  popular  will  ?  Is  it  to 
find  out  and  do  what  the  people,  if  assembled  in  mass,  would 
do  ?  Is  it  simply  a  contrivance  to  avoid  the  inconveniences 
of  large  convocations,  and  bound  to  seek  the  same  results 


28 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


which  theee  convocations  would  be  likely  to  eiFect?  This 
doctrine  I  utterly  and  absolutely  deny.  Representatives 
are  appointed,  not  to  ascertain  what  the  will  of  the  people 
actually  is,  but  what  it  ought  to  be.  The  people  are  not 
permitted  to  legislate  en  masse,  because  their  passions  and 
caprices  are  likely  to  prove  stronger  than  reason  and  truth. 
Representation  is  a  check  upon  themselves.  Every  State 
is  bound  to  realize  the  idea  of  justice.  This  requires  calm 
deliberation  and  sober  thought.  To  provide  for  this  delib- 
eration, to  protect  themselves  from  their  own  prejudices 
and  passions,  and  to  cause  the  voice  of  reason  to  be  heard, 
they  retire  from  the  scene,  and  leave  the  inquiry  and  decis- 
ion of  their  duty  to  chosen^  men,  in  whose  wisdom  they 
have  confidence.  This  is  the  true  theory  of  parliamentary 
government.  Courts  are  appointed  to  interpret  the  law, 
and  officers  to  execute  the  decrees  of  the  courts,  in  order 
that  justice  and  not  passion  may  rule  in  every  trial.  The 
supremacy  of  reason  and  justice  is  the  supremacy  of  law 
and  order.  Contemplated  in  this  light,  parliamentary 
government  is  the  most  perfect  under  heaven.  It  avoids 
equally  the  extremes  of  the  despotism  of  a  single  will, 
which  is  sure  to  terminate  in  tyranny,  and  of  the  still  more 
hateful  despotism  of  mobs,  which  is  sure  to  terminate  in 
anarchy.  It  gives  rise  to  a  free  commonwealth.  It  aims 
at  the  true  and  right,  and  truth  and  rectitude  are  the  safe- 
guards of  freedom.  Such  is  the  genius  of  our  own  institu- 
tions. But  how  has  the  gold  become  dim,  and  the  line 
gold  changed !  Has  the  Congress  of  these  United  States 
fulfilled  its  high  idea  ?  Called  together  to  deliberate,  to 
discuss,  to  inquire  after  truth;  bound  to  listen  to  no  voice 
but  the  voice  of  wisdom  and  justice — has  it  always  pre- 
sented the  spectacle  of  gravity,  decorum,  and  candor,  which 
we  expect  to  behold  in  the  Senate  of  a  free  people?  What 
shall  we  say,  when  gold  has  usurped  the  authority  of  truth, 
when  votes  have  been  bought  and  sold,  and  the  interests  of 
a  faction  allowed  to  outweigh  the  rights  and  interests  of  a 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


29 


whole  people?  What  shall  we  say,  when  hlows  have  taken 
the  place  of  argument,  and  our  halls  of  legislation  have 
been  converted  into  an  arena  for  the  combats  of  fierce 
gladiators?  What  shall  we  say,  when,  instead  of  the  lan- 
guage of  calm  deliberation,  the  representatives  of  the  people 
have  vied  with  each  other  in  vituperation  and  abuse,  and, 
when  they  have  exhausted  the  dialect  of  Billingsgate,  have 
rushed  upon  each  other  with  the  ferocity  of  tigers,  or  with 
the  fury  of  the  bulls  of  Bashan  ?  The  offence  is  rank,  and 
smells  to  heaven.  Such  an  awful  prostitation  of  high 
functions  can  not  take  place  Avith  impunity.  The  hall  which 
should  have  inscribed  upon  its  portals  the  scene  of  ivisdom 
and  of  high  debate,  cannot  become  a  den  of  robbers,  or  a 
rendezvous  for  bullies  and  hectors,  without  provoking  the 
just  judgments  of  God.  It  is  a  lamentation,  and  shall  be 
for  a  lamentation,  that  the  Federal  Legislature,  which  ought 
to  have  been  a  model  of  refined,  impartial  and  courteous 
debate — a  model  to  which  we  could  always  point  with  an 
honest  pride,  has  made  itself  a  scandal  to  a  civilized  people. 
The  day  of  reckoning  was  obliged  to  come.  The  country 
is  brought  to  the  brink  of  dissolution. 

The  corruption  is  of  the  same  kind  when  the  tribunals 
of  the  law  are  set  aside,  and  mobs  usurp  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  courts.  There  may  be  occasions  when  the  estab- 
lished order  is  unable  to  check  a  threatenino;  evil.  In  such 
cases,  the  necessities  of  self-defence  may  justify  society  in 
falling  back  upon  its  primordial  rights.  But  these  occa- 
sions are  rare.  But  when  society  assumes,  without  necessity, 
the  functions  of  judges  and  magistrates,  it  is  guilty  of  an 
abuse  which,  if  not  arrested,  must  end  in  anarchy.  There 
only  is  security  where  the  law  is  supreme;  and  the  worst 
of  all  social  evils  is  where  the  populace  is  stronger  than  the 
law — where  the  sentence  of  courts  is  annulled  by  the  phren- 
zy  of  mobs,  and  the  officers  of  justice  are  insulted  and 
restrained  in  the  execution  of  their  functions. 


30 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


In  these  respects,  all  of  which  resolve  themselves  mto  the 
abuse  of  the  representative  principle,  we  have  national  sins 
to  confess.  We  have  poisoned  the  springs  of  our  govern- 
ment. We  have  given  to  faction  what  is  clue  to  truth.  We 
have  dethroned  reason  and  justice,  and  made  our  legisla- 
tion a  miserable  scramble  for  the  interests  of  sections  and 
parties.  We  have  deified  the  people,  making  their  will,  as 
will,  and  not  as  reasonable  and  right,  the  supreme  law ;  and 
they,  in  turn,  have  deified  themselves,  by  assuming  all  the 
attributes  of  government,  and  exercising  unlimited  domin- 
ion. They  have  become  at  once  legislators,  judges,  juries, 
and  executioners.  The  last  form  of  evil  has  been  only 
occasional,  but  unless  checked  and  repressed,  it  may 
strengthen  and  expand.  In  proportion  as  it  increases, 
reverence  for  law  and  for  the  forms  of  law  loses  its  power. 
The  tendency  to  sink  our  institutions  into  a  pure  demo- 
cracy has  been  steadily  growing.  We  are  rapidly  losing 
even  the  notion  of  a  representative,  by  merging  it  into  that 
of  a  deputy  ;  and  it  is  but  the  natural  product  of  this  error, 
that  Congress  should  be  the  battle-ground  of  conflicting 
wills,  and  that  its  sole  inquiry  should  become :  what  says 
the  voice  of  the  majority?    Vox  jwjndi,  vox  Dei. 

I  have  said,  I  think,  enough  to  show  that  in  our  federal 
relations,  we  have  reason  to  be  humbled  in  the  presence  ot 
God.  Our  Government  is  a  noble  one.  Human  wisdom 
could  not  have  devised  a  better.  With  all  our  unfaithful- 
ness it  has  made  us  great  ^nd  prosperous.  It  has  won  for 
us  the  homage  and  respect  of  the  world  ;  and  had  we  been 
faithful  to  its  principles,  the  blessings  it  has  already  con- 
ferred upon  us  would  be  but  the  beginning  of  its  triumphs. 
Could  we  continue  a  united  people,  united  in  heart  as  well 
as  in  form  ;  could  the  government  be  administered  accord- 
ing to  the  real  genius  of  our  federal  and  representative  in- 
stitutions, imagination  can  hardly  conceive  the  scene  of 
prosperity,  influence  and  glory  wdrich  would  dawn  upon 
our  children  a  hundred  years  hence.    When  we  contem- 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


31 


plate  what  we  might  become,  and  then  look  at  the  prospect 
which  is  now  before  us,  we  have  reason  to  put  our  hands 
on  our  mouths,  and  our  mouths  in  the  dust,  and  to  exclaim  : 
God  he  merciful  to  us  sinners  !  Let  us  weep  for  the  country. 
Let  us  confess  our  own  sins  and  the  sins  of  the  people. 
God  may  hear  the  cry  of  the  penitent,  and  say  to  them,  as 
He  said  to  Moses,  when  he  deplored  the  sins  of  his  people, 
I  loill  make  of  thee  a  great  nation. 

3.  There  are  other  forms  of  sin  which,  though  not  national 
in  the  sense  that  they  pertain  to  the  administration  of  the 
government,  are  national  in  the  sense  that  they  are  widely 
diffused  among  the  people  :  they  enter  into  the  grounds  of 
the  Divine  controversy  with  us ;  and,  if  not  repented  of  and 
forsaken,  must  end  in  national  calamities.  Conspicuous 
among  these  is  the  sin  of  profaneness.  The  name  of  God 
is  constantly  on  our  lips,  and  if  the  frequency  with  which 
it  is  used  were  any  sign  of  religion,  ours  might  pass  for  the 
most  devout  people  under  heaven.  We  introduce  it  into 
every  subject,  and  upon  all  occasions.  A  sentence  is  never 
complete  without  it.  If  we  are  earnest,  it  enlivens  our  dis- 
course ;  if  we  are  angry,  it  affords  a  vent  to  our  passions ; 
if  we  are  merry,  it  quickens  our  enjoyments,  and  if  we  are 
sad,  it  relieves  our  misery.  Like  those  particles  in  the 
Greek  tongue,  which  to  the  philologist  give  a  delicate  turn 
to  the  meaning,  but  which  to  the  common  reader  might  be 
removed  without  being  missed,  the  name  of  God  is  indis- 
pensable in  the  vulgar  dialect  of  the  people,  but  it  takes  a 
practised  ear  to  detect  the  shade  which  it  gives  to  the  sen- 
tence. Many  persons  would  be  dumb  if  they  were  not 
allowed  to  be  profane.  The  only  words  which,  as  nimble 
servitors,  are  ready  to  obey  their  bidding,  are  the  names  of 
God  and  the  awful  terms  in  which  He  announces  the  final 
doom  of  the  guilty.  These  are  their  vocabulary.  Judging 
from  the  discourse  which  he  is  likely  to  hear  in  the  streets, 
a  stranger  might  infer  that  the  name  was  all  that  we  had 
left  of  God ;  that  we  were  a  nation  of  atheists,  who  had  at 


32 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


last  discovered  tliat  He  was  only  a  word,  and,  determined  to 
make  reprisals  for  the  terrors  with  which  superstition  had 
clothed  Him,  we  were  degrading  even  the  name  by  the  j 
lowest  associations.    That  a  puny  mortal  should  thus  trifle  j 
with  the  majesty  of  God,  and  make  a  jest  of  the  Divine  j 
judgments,  is  a  spectacle  which  may-  well  astonish  the  j 
angels,  and  ought  to  confound  ourselves.    Devils  hate,  but 
they  dare  not  make  light  of  God.    It  is  only  here  upon 
earth,  where  the  patience  of  God  is  as  infinite  as  His  being, 
that  the  name  which  fills  heaven  with  reverence  and  hell  | 
with  terror  is  an  idle  word.    Profaneness  naturally  leads  \ 
to  licentiousness,  by  dissolving  the  sentiment  of  reverence.  ' 

Closely  connected  with  levity  in  the  use  of  the  Divine  j 
name,  is  the  profaneness  which  treats  with  contempt  the  ' 
positive  institution  of  the  Sabbath.    Here  the  government  ] 
is  implicated  in  the  sin.    It  encourages  the  desecration  of  j 
the  Lord's  Day  by  the  companies  which  carry  its  mails.  ; 
The  Sabbath,  as  an  external  institute,  is  absolutely  essential 
to  the  maintenance  and  propagation  of  Christianity  in  the 
world,  and  until  the  Christian  religion  is  disproved,  and  the 
supremacy  of  Christ  set  aside,  no  government  on  earth  can 
annul  it  with  impunity.  1 

It  is  also  characteristic  of  our  people  that  they  are  self- 
sufiicient  and  vainglorious,  to  a  degree  that  makes  them  i 
ridiculous.    They  love  to  boast,  and  they  love  to  sacrifice 
to  their  own  drag  and  to  burn  incense  to  their  own  net.  ■ 
They  feel  themselves  competent  for  every  enterprise.    They  j 
can  scale  heaven,  weigh  the  earth,  and  measure  the  sea.  ! 
Their  own  arms  and  their  own  right  hand  will  get  them  the  J 
victory  in  every  undertaking.    Even  the  style  of  their  con- 
versation is  grandiloquent.    The  hyperbole  is  their  fa- 
vorite figure,  and  the  superlative  their  favorite  degree 
of  comparison.    To  hear  their  self-laudations,  you  would  I 
never  dream  that  they  acknowledged  a  Providence,  or  ; 
depended   on    any  superior  power.     All   this    is    the  ] 
grossest  atheism.    The  consequence  of  this  self-sufficiency 


i 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


8a 


is  a  want  of  reverence  for  any  thing.  We  honor  neither 
Gocl  nor  the  king.  We  revile  our  rulers,  and  speak  evil  of 
dignities,  with  as  little  compunction  as  we  profane  the  ordi- 
nances of  religion.  Nothing  is  great  but  ourselves.  It  is 
enough  to  indicate  these  types  of  sin,  without  dwelling 
upon  them.  The  important  thing  is  to  feel  that  they  are 
sins.  They  are  so  common  that  they  cease  to  impress  us, 
and  in  some  of  their  aspects  they  are  so  grotesque,  they 
provoke  a  smile  more  readily  than  a  tear. 

4.  Having  adverted  to  the  sins  which  belong  to  us  as 
members  of  the  Confederacy,  let  us  now  turn  to  those  which 
belong  to  us  as  a  particular  Commonwealth.  I  shall  restrict 
myself  to  our  dealings  with  the  institution  which  has  pro- 
duced the  present  convulsions  of  the  country,  and  brought 
us  to  the  verge  of  ruin.  That  the  relation  betwixt  the  slave 
and  his  master  is  not  inconsistent  with  the  word  of  God,  we 
have  long  since  settled.  Our  consciences  are  not  troubled, 
and  have  no  reason  to  be  troubled,  on  this  score.  We  do 
not  hold  our  slaves  in  bondage  from  remorseless  considera- 
tions of  interest.  If  I  know  the  character  of  our  people,  I 
think  I  can  safely  say,  that  if  they  were  persuaded  of  the 
essential  immorality  of  slavery,  they  would  not  be  back- 
ward in  adopting  measures  for  the  ultimate  abatement  of 
the  evil.  We  cherish  the  institution  not  from  avarice,  but 
from  principle.  We  look  upon  it  as  an  element  of  strength, 
and  not  of  weakness,  and  conhdently  anticipate  the  time 
when  the  nations  that  now  revile  us  would  gladly  change 
places  with  us.  In  its  last  analysis,  slavery  is  nothing  but 
an  organization  of  labor,  and  an  organization  b}^  virtue  of 
which  labor  and  capital  are  made  to  coincide.  Under  this 
scheme,  labor  can  never  be  without  employment,  and  the 
wealth  of  the  country  is  pledged  to  feed  and  clothe  it. 
Where  labor  is  free,  and  the  laborer  not  a  part  of  the  capi- 
tal of  the  country,  there  are  two  causes  constantly  at  work, 
which,  in  the  excessive  contrasts  they  produce,  must  end  in 
agrarian  revolutions  and  intolerable  distress.  The  first  is 
5 


34 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


the  tendency  of  capital  to  accumulate.  Where  it  does  not 
include  the  laborer  as  a  part,  it  will  employ  only  that  labor 
which  will  yield  the  largest  returns.  It  looks  to  itself,  and 
not  to  the  interest  of  the  laborer.  The  other  is  the  ten- 
dency of  population  to  outstrip  the  demands  for  employ- 
ment. The  multiplication  of  laborers  not  only  reduces 
wages  to  the  lowest  point,  but  leaves  multitudes  wholly 
unemployed.  While  the  capitalist  is  accumulating  his 
hoards,  rolling  in  affluence  and  splendor,  thousands  that 
would  work  if  they  had  the  opportunity  are  doomed  to 
perish  of  hunger.  The  most  astonishing  contrasts  of  pov- 
erty and  riches  are  constantly  increasing.  Society  is  divided 
between  princes  and  beggars.  If  labor  is  left  free,  how  is 
this  condition  of  things  to  be  obviated  ?  The  government 
must  either  make  provision  to  support  people  in  idleness,  or 
it  must  arrest  the  law  of  population  and  keep  them  from 
being  born,  or  it  must  organize  labor.  Human  beings  can- 
not be  expected  to  starve.  There  is  a  point  at  which  they 
will  rise  in  desperation  against  a  social  order  which  dooms 
them  to  nakedness  and  famine,  whilst  their  lordly  neighbor 
is  clothed  in  purple  and  fine  linen,  and  faring  sumptuously 
every  day.  They  will  scorn  the  logic  which  makes  it  their 
duty  to  perish  in  the  midst  of  plenty.  Bread  they  must 
have,  and  bread  they  will  have,  though  all  the  distinctions 
of  property  have  to  be  abolished  to  provide  it.  The  govern- 
ment, therefore,  must  support  them,  or  an  agrarian  revolu- 
tion is  inevitable.  But  shall  it  support  them  in  idleness  ? 
Will  the  poor,  who  have  to  work  for  their  living,  consent 
to  see  others  as  stout  and  able  as  themselves  clothed  and 
fed  like  the  lilies  of  the  field,  while  they  toil  not,  neither 
do  they  spin  ?  Will  not  this  be  to  give  a  premium  to  idle- 
ness ?  The  government,  then,  must  find  them  employment; 
but  how  shall  this  be  done  ?  On  what  principle  shall  labor 
be  organized  so  as  to  make  it  certain  that  the  laborer  shall 
never  be  without  employment,  and  employment  adequate 
for  his  support  ?    The  only  way  in  which  it  can  be  done,  as 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


35 


a  permanent  arrangement,  is  by  converting  tlie  laborer  into 
capital ;  that  is,  by  giving  the  employer  a  right  of  property 
in  the  Labor  employed ;  in  other  words,  by  slavery.  The 
master  must  always  find  work  for  his  slave,  as  well  as  fooc^ 
and  raiment.  / The  capital  of  the  country,  under  this  sys- 
tem, must  always  feed  and  clothe  the  country.  There  can 
be  no  pauperism,  and  no  temptations  to  agrarianism.  That 
non-slaveholding  States  will  eventually  have  to  organize 
labor,  and  to  introduce  something  so  like  to  slavery  that  it 
will  be  impossible  to  discriminate  between  them,  or  to 
sutler  from  the  most  violent  and  disastrous  insurrections 
against  the  system  which  creates  and  perpetuates  their 
misery,  seems  to  be  as  certain  as  the  tendencies  in  the  laws 
of  capital  and*  population  to  produce  the  extremes  of  pov- 
erty and  wealth.  We  do  not  envy  them  their  social  condi-^ 
tion.  With  sanctimonious  complacency  they  may  affect  to 
despise  us,  and  to  shun  our  society  as  they  would  shun  the 
infection  of  a  plague.  They  may  say  to  us,  Stand  by — we 
are  holier  than  thou;  but  the  day  of  reckoning  must  come. 
As  long  as  the  demand  for  labor  transcends  the  supply,  all 
is  well :  capital  and  labor  are  mutual  friends,  and  the  coun- 
try grows  in  wealth  with  mushroom  rapidity.  But  when  it 
is  no  longer  capital  asking  for  labor,  but  labor  asking  for 
capital ;  when  it  is  no  longer  work  seeking  men,  but  men 
seeking  work — then  the  tables  are  turned,  and  unemployed 
labor  and  selfish  capital  stand  face  to  face  in  deadly  hostil- 
ity. We  desire  to  see  no  such  state  of  things  among  our- 
selves, and  we  accept  as  a  good  and  merciful  constitution 
the  organization  of  labor  which  Providence  has  given  us 
in  slavery.  Like  every  human  arrangement,  it  is  liable  to 
abuse ;  but  in  its  idea,  and  in  its  ultimate  influence  upon 
the  social  system,  it  is  wise  and  beneficent.  We  see  in  it 
a  security  for  the  rights  of  property  and  a  safeguard  against 
pauperism  and  idleness,  which  our  traducers  may  yet  live 
to  wish  had  been  engrafted  upon  their  own  institutions. 
The  idle  declamation  about  degrading  men  to  the  condition 


86 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


of  chattels,  and  treating  them  as  cows,  oxen,  or  swine ;  the 
idea  that  the}-  are  regarded  as  tools  and  instruments,  and 
not  as  beings  possessed  of  immortal  souls,  betray  a  gross 
ignorance  of  the  real  nature  of  the  relation.  Slavery  gives 
one  man  the  right  of  property  in  the  labor  of  another. 
The  property  of  man  in  man  is  only  the  property  of  man 
in  human  toil.  The  laborer  becomes  capital,  not  because 
he  is  a  thing,  but  because  he  is  the  exponent  of  a  presumed 
amount  of  labor.  This  is  the  radical  notion  of  the  system^ 
and  all  legislation  upon  it  should  be  regulated  by  this  fun- 
damental idea. 

The  question  now  arises,  Have  we,  as  a  people  and  a 
State,  discharged  our  duty  to  our  slaves?  Is  there  not  rea- 
son to  apprehend  that  in  some  cases  we  have  given  occasion 
to  the  calumnies  of  our  adversaries,  by  putting  the  defence 
of  slavery  upon  grounds  which  make  the  slave  a  different 
kind  of  being  from  his  master?  Depend  upon  it,  it  is  no 
light  matter  to  deny  the  common  brotherhood  of  humanity. 
The  consequences  are  much  graver  than  flippant  specu- 
lators about  the  diversity  of  races  are  aware  of.  If  the 
African  is  not  of  the  same  blood  with  ourselves,  he  has  no 
lot  nor  part  in  the  Gospel.  The  redemption  of  Jesus  Christ 
extends  only  to  those  who  are  partakers  of  the  same  flesh 
and  blood  with  Himself.  The  ground  of  His  right  to 
redeem  is  the  participation,  not  of  a  like,  but  of  a  common 
nature.  Had  the  humanity  of  Jesus  been  miraculously 
created  apart  from  connection  with  the  human  race,  though 
it  might  in  all  respects  have  been  precisely  similar  to  ours, 
He  could  not,  according  to  the  Scriptures,  have  been  our 
Eedeemer.  He  must  be  able  to  call  us  brethren  before  He 
can  impart  to  us  His  saving  grace,  l^o  Christian  man, 
therefore,  can  give  any  countenance  to  speculations  which 
trace  the  negro  to  any  other  parent  but  Adam.  If  he  is 
not  descended  from  Adam,  he  has  not  the  same  flesh  and 
blood  with  Jesus,  and  is  therefore  excluded  from  the  possi- 
bility of  salvation.    Those  who  defend  slavery  upon  the 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


37 


plea  that  the  African  is  not  of  the  same  stock  with  our- 
selves, are  aiming  a  fatal  blow  at  the  institution,  by  bring- 
ing it  into  conflict  with  the  dearest  doctrines  of  the  gospel. 
To  arm  the  religious  sentiment  against  it,  is  to  destroy  it. 
When  the  question  at  stake  is,  whether  a  large  portion  of 
mankind  can  be  saved,  we  want  some  thing  more  than 
deductions  from  doubtful  phenomena.  Nothing  but  the 
Word  of  God  can  justify  us  in  shutting  the  gates  of  mercy 
upon  any  portion  of  the  race.  The  science,  falsely  so 
called,  which  proflers  its  aid  upon  such  conditions,  is  such 
a  friend  to  slaverj-  as  Joab  to  Amasa,  who  met  him  with 
the  frieudly  greeting.  Art  thou  in  healthy  my  brother?  and 
stabbed  him  under  the  fifth  rib.  I  am  happy  to  say  that 
such  speculations  have  not  sprung  from  slavery.  They 
were  not  invented  to  justify  it.  They  are  the  offspring  of 
infidelity,  a  part  of  the  process  by  which  science  has  been 
endeavoring  to  convict  Christianity  of  falsehood ;  and  it  is 
as  idle  to  charge  the  responsibility  of  the  doctrine  about 
the  diversity  of  species  upon  slaveholders,  as  to  load  them 
with  the  guilt  of  questioning  the  geological  accuracy  of 
Moses.  Both  are  assaults  of  infidel  science  upon  the 
records  of  our  faith,  and  both  have  found  their  warmest 
advocates  among  the  opponents  of  slavery.  Our  ofience 
has  been,  that  in  some  instances  we  have  accepted  and  con- 
verted" into  a  plea,  the  conclasions  of  this  vain  deceit.  Let 
us  see  to  it  that  we  give  our  revilers  no  handle  against  us ; 
above  all,  that  we  make  noc  God  our  enemy.  Let  us  not 
repudiate  our  kindred  with  the  poor  brethren  whom  He 
has  scattered  among  us,  and  entrusted  to  our  guardianship 
and  care.  Let  us  receive  them  as  bone  of  our  bone,  and 
flesh  of  our  flesh.  Let  us  recognize  them  as  having  the 
same  Father,  the  same  Redeemer,  and  the  same  everlasting 
destiny. 

Let  us  inquire,  in  the  next  place,  whether  we  have  ren- 
dered unto  our  servants  that  which  is  just  and  equal.  Is 
our  legislation  in  all  respects  in  harmony  with  the  idea  of 


38 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


slavery?    Are  our  laws  sucli  that  we  can  heartily  approve 
them  in  the  presence  of  God  ?    Have  we  sufficiently  pro- 
tected the  person  of  the  slave  ?    Are  our  provisions  ade- 
quate for  giving  him  a  fair  and  impartial  trial  when  prose- 
cuted for  offences  ?    Do  we  guard  as  we  should  his  family 
relations?    And,  above  all,  have  we  furnished  him  with 
proper  means  of  religious  instruction  ?    These  and  such 
questions  we  should  endeavor  to  answer  with  the  utmost 
solemnity  and  truth.    We  have  come  before  the  Lord  as 
penitents.    The  people  whom  we  hold  in  bondage  are  the 
occasion  of  all  our  troubles.    We  have  been  provoked  by 
bitter  and  furious  assailants  to  deal  harshly  with  them,  and 
it  becomes  us  this  day  to  review  our  history,  and  the  history 
of  our  legislation,  in  the  light  of  God's  truth,  and  to  aban- 
don, with  ingenuous  sincerity,  w^hatever  our  consciences 
can  not  sanction.    Let  not  the  taunts  of  our  revilers  shake 
us  from  our  propriety.    Let  it  be  our  first  care  to  commend 
ourselves  to  God,  and,  if  He  be  for  us,  what  does  it  signify 
who  is  against  us  ?    Our  slaves  are  a  solemn  trust,  and 
while  we  have  a  riHit  to  use  and  direct  their  labor,  we  are 
bound  to  feed,  clothe  and  protect  them,  to  give  them  the 
comforts  of  this  life,  and  to  introduce  them  to  the  hopes  of 
a  blessed  immortality.    They  are  moral  beings,  and  it  w^ill 
be  found  that  in  the  culture  of  their  moral  nature  we  reap 
the  largest  rew^ard  from  their  service.    The  relation  itself  is 
moral,  and  in  the  tender  affections  and  endearing  sympathies 
it  evokes,  it  gives  scope  for  the  exercise  of  the  most  attractive 
graces  of  human  character.  Strange  as  it  may  sound  to  those 
who  are  not  familiar  w^ith  the  system,  slavery  is  a  school  of 
virtue,  and  no  class  of  men  have  furnished  sublimer  in- 
stances of  heroic  devotion  than  slaves  in  their  loyalty  and 
love  to  their  masters.    We  have  seen  them  rejoice  at  the 
cradle  of  the  infant,  and  weep  at  the  bier  of  the  dead;  and 
there  are  few  amongst  us,  perhaps,  who  have  not  drawn 
their  nourishment  from  their  generous  breasts.  Where  the 
relations  are  so  kindly,  there  is  every  motive  of  fidelity  on 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


39 


our  part.  Let  u?  apr»l y  with  unflinching  candor  the  golden 
rule  of  our  Saviour.  Have  we  rendered  to  our  slaves  what, 
if  we  were  in  their  circumstances,  we  should  think  it  right 
and  just  in  them  to  render  to  us.  ^"e  are  not  bound  to 
render  unto  tliem  what  they  may  in  fact  desire.  Such  a 
rule  would  transmute  morality  into  arbitraiy  caprice.  But 
we  are  bound  to  render  unto  them  what  they  have  a  right 
to  desire :  that  is.  we  are  bound  to  render  unto  them  that 
wliieli  is  just  and  erjual.  The  Saviour  requires  us  to  ex- 
change places,  in  order  that  we  may  appreciate  what  is  just 
and  equal,  free  from  the  benumbing  influences  which  are 
likely  to  j^tervert  the  judgment  when  there  is  no  personal 
interest  in  the  decision.  I  need  not  say  that  it  is  our  duty 
as  a  Commonwealth  to  develope  all  the  capabilities  of  good 
which  the  relation  of  slavery  contains.  They  have  never 
yet  been  fully  uufulded.  AVe  have  had  to  attend  so  much 
to  the  outer  defences,  that  we  have  not  been  in  a  condition 
to  give  full  play  to  the  energies  of  the  inward  life.  This 
is  the  problem  to  which  Clnistian  statesmen  should  here- 
after direct  their  elibrts, 

II.  This  day  is  a  day  of  prayer,  as  well  as  of  humiliation 
and  confession.  There  are  blessings  which  in  our  present 
circumstances  we  urgently  need,  and  we  should  make  them 
the  burden  of  importunate  supplications.  The  first  is  the 
grace  of  magnanimity,  that  our  moderation  may  be  known 
unto  all  men.  By  moderation.  I  do  not  mean  tameness  and 
servility  of  spirit:  and  by  magnanimity  I  do  not  mean  what 
Aristotle  seems  to  understand  by  it — a  consciousness  of 
worth  which  feels  itself  entitled  to  great  rewards.  The 
true  notion  of  it  is,  a  just  sense  of  what  is  due  to  the 
dignity  of  the  State,  and  an  humble  reliance  upon  God  to 
make  it  equal  to  every  occasion.  The  mind  that  feels  the 
responsibility  of  ifs  spiritual  endowments,  and  aims  at  the 
perfection  of  its  nature  in  the  consummation  of  an  end 
which  satisfies  the  fullness  of  its  being,  while  it  arrogates 
nothing  of  merit  to  itself,  but  ascribes  all  its  capacities  to 


40 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


the  unmerited  bounties  of  God ;  tlie  mind  that  is  conscious 
of  what  is  due  to  mind,  and  intent  upon  fulfilling  its  own 
idea — is  truly  great ;  and  the  more  thoroughly  it  is  pene- 
trated with  this  consciousness,  the  more  deeply  it  is  hum- 
bled under  the  conviction  of  its  manifold  shortcomins^s,  and 
the  more  earnest  in  its  cries  for  grace  to  enable  it  to  win 
the  prize.  To  know  our  true  place  in  the  universe, 
to  feel  that  we  are  possessed  of  noble  jjowers,  and 
that  we  are  bound  to  pursue  an  end  that  is  worthy  of 
them,  is  not  pride,  but  sobriety  of  judgment.  Pride 
emerges  when  we  attribute  to  ourselves  the  excellence  of 
our  gifts ;  when  we  cherish  a  spirit  of  independence  and 
self  sufficiency,  and  rob  God  of  the  glory  which  is  due  to 
His  bounty.  Humility  is  not  a  confession  that  mind  is 
intrinsically  little  :  it  is  only  the  conviction  of  its  absolute 
dependence  upon  God,  and  of  its  relative  nothingness  when 
compared  with  Him.  A  Commonwealth  is  magnanimous 
w^hen  it  comprehends  the  vocation  of  a  State,  when  it  rises 
to  the  dignity  of  its  high  functions,  and  seeks  to  cherish  a 
spirit  in  harmony  with  the  great  moral  purposes  it  was 
ordained  to  execute.  A  magnanimous  State  can  not  be  the 
victim  of  petty  passions.  It  is  superior  to  rashness,  to 
revenge,  to  irritation,  and  caprice.  It  has  an  ideal  which 
it  aims  to  exemplif}^ ;  cultivates  a  mind  upon  a  level  with 
its  calling,  and,  turning  neither  to  the  right  nor  to  the  left, 
presses  with  undeviating  step  to  the  goal  before  it.  It  is 
calm,  collected,  self-possessed,  resolved.  It  dares  do  all 
that  may  become  a  State.  It  will  attempt  nothing  more ; 
it  will  be  content  with  nothing  less.  That  we,  as  a  Com- 
monwealth, in  the  trying  circumstances  in  which  we  are 
placed,  may  be  able  to  exhibit  this  spectacle  of  magna- 
nimity to  the  world;  that  we  may  command  its  admiration 
by  the  dignity  and  self-respect  of  our  beai^ing,  even  though 
we  should  not  secure  its  assent  to  the  wisdom  of  our  policy; 
that  we  may  make  all  men  see  and  feel  that  we  are  actuated 
by  principle,  and  not  by  passion,  should  be  a  subject  of  our 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


41 


fervent  supplications  this  day.  Wisdom  and  courage  are 
the  inspiration  of  God. 

In  the  next  place,  we  should  look  to  Him  to  raise  up  for 
us,  as  guides  and  leaders  in  the  present  emergency,  men  of 
counsel  and  understanding.  Statesmen  in  the  State,  as 
Apostles  in  the  Church,  are  special  ministers  of  God. 
They  arise  at  His  bidding,  and  execute  His  behests.  Moses 
and  Joshua,  Solon  and  Lycurgus,  the  Prince  of  Orange  and 
"Washington,  were  anointed  and  commissioned  of  Heaven 
for  the  work  they  so  happily  performed.  To  construct  a 
Government  of  any  kind,  is  a  work  of  no  ordinary  magni- 
tude ;  but  the  Government  of  a  free  people,  with  its  com- 
plicated checks  and  balances,  it  is  given  only  to  the  loftiest 
minds  to  be  able  to  conceive,  much  less  to  create.  If  ever 
there  was  a  time,  since  the  adoption  of  the  Federal  Consti- 
tution, when  the  whole  country  needed  the  counsel  and 
guidance  of  patriotic  statesmen,  it  is  now,  when,  under  the 
lead  of  demagogues,  factions  and  politicians,  we  have  cor- 
rupted every  principle  of  our  polity,  and  brought  the  Gov- 
ernment to  the  brink  of  dissolution,  l^o  human  arm  is 
equal  to  the  crisis.  No  human  eye  can  penetrate  the  future. 
Our  only  help  is  in  God ;  from  Him  alone  cometh  our  sal- 
vation. The  highest  proof  of  patriotism  in  the  present 
conjuncture,  is  in  penitence  and  humility  to  seek  His  favor, 
and  if  it  is  His  purpose  to  redeem  and  save  us,  in  answer  to 
our  prayers,  He  will  cause  the  men  to  stand  forth,  and  the 
people  to  honor  and  accept  them  whom  He  has  commis- 
sioned to  conduct  us  through  the  wilderness.  In  the  mean- 
time, let  us  scrupulously  resist  every  influence  that  is 
unfriendly  to  the  influence  of  His  Spirit.  Let  us  mortify 
every  thought,  and  subdue  every  passion,  upon  which  we 
can  not  sincerely  invoke  His  blessing.  Jf  we  are  to  lay  the 
foundations  if  a  new  empire,  or  to  readjust  the  proportions 
of  the  old,  the  only  pledge  of  permanent  success  is  the 
Divine  favor.  Happy  is  that  people,  and  that  people  alone, 
whose  God  is  the  Lord. 
6 


42 


FAST-DAY  SERMON. 


Finally,  let  us  pray  that  our  courage  may  be  equal  to 
every  emergency.  Even  thougli  our  cause  be  just,  and  our 
course  approved  of  Heaven,  our  path  to  victory  may  be 
through  a  baptism  of  blood.  Liberty  has  its  martyrs  and 
confessors,  as  well  as  religion.  The  oak  is  rooted  amid 
wintry  storms.  Great  truths  come  to  us  at  great  cost,  and 
the  most  impressive  teachers  of  mankind  are  those  who 
have  sealed  their  lessons  with  their  blood.  Our  State  may 
suffer;  she  may  suffer  grieviously;  she  may  suffer  long: 
Be  it  so :  we  shall  love  her  the  more  tenderly  and  the  more 
intensely,  the  more  bitterly  she  suffers.  It  does  not  follow, 
even  if  she  should  be  destined  to  fall,  that  her  course  was 
wrong,  or  her  sufferings  in  vain.  Thermopylse  was  lost, 
but  the  moral  power  of  Thermopylae  will  continue  as  long 
as  valor  and  freedom  have  a  friend,  and  reverence  for  law 
is  one  of  the  noblest  sentiments  of  the  human  soul.  Let 
it  be  our  great  concern  to  know  God's  will.  Let  right  and 
duty  be  our  watchword;  liberty,  regulated  by  law,  our  goal 
and,  leaning  upon  the  arm  of  everlasting  strength,  we  shall 
achieve  a  name,  whether  we  succeed  or  fail,  that  posterity 
will  not  willingly  let  die. 


CALL  MUMBER 

Vol. 

1  zmc 

Copy  No7~^  ^ 

975.7     Z99C     1360-79    v.  4  nos,61 

3  '-^63C8  '  5o 


THIS  VOLQME  DOES  NOT  CIRCUL'\T5 
OUTSIDE  THS  LIBKA.RY  BUILDIN3 


